Nenn woke up with a start. His head pounded as he tried to grasp what was happening. There was a buzzing sensation from the smartwatch on his wrist, and the sound of his phone vibrating violently against his nightstand helped to pull Nenn from his hungover state. The world was nearing the end of a week-long public holiday to celebrate the achievements of mankind. Seven days prior, the first manned mission to land on Mars had touched down on Earth to thunderous applause.
A week-long holiday was definitely worth it in Nenn’s mind, after all, it was the biggest moment in human history and Nenn had been there to watch it happen over the last two years. On the night the international team of astronauts were to return, the world came to a complete standstill as everyone held their breath and prayed for success. Five minutes after the astronauts emerged from their landing capsule the world immediately began a week long bender in celebration.
Nenn’s phone began vibrating in his hand again pulling him from his bleary, hungover state. He fumbled with his phone and finally managed to unlock it. On the screen there was the number 30, which was replaced with a slightly jarring animation to a 29, then a 28 and so on. It took Nenn’s brain a moment to catch on that it was a countdown, but to what? Well, there was only one way to find out so Nenn continued to fixate on his screen. He tried to close the mysterious app, but found that he had been locked out of his phone’s controls. Not even the power button managed to turn off the screen.
When the countdown hit zero words began to crawl horizontally across the screen. They were the words that would haunt humanity for the rest of their days.
Congratulations on your accomplishment Humans of Earth!
You have successfully returned from another planetary body successfully.
With the last criteria met, you are ready to undergo The Trial to join the rest of galactic civilization.
Be warned that failing to succeed will result in the extinction of your species.
10% of your population must enter per year, or they will be culled at random*.
Humans who are 18 years old or older please gather in your capitals if you wish to participate.
The trial will open in 24 hours.
Nenn blinked, struggling to take in the gravity of the information as his phone returned to its normal functionality. Immediately his social media accounts began to blow up. It only took a minute, but it became very clear that the whole world had received the same message with people sharing screenshots and recordings of the affair.
And after a brief cursory look, Nenn tuned it all out. It was not productive to spin in circles and complain and naysay the message. Nenn thought about it rationally. It would take an impossible amount of effort to be able to hack and lock down every device capable of receiving the message in one location, let alone every single device on Earth. That was something beyond humanity’s current abilities. That added credibility to the threat in Nenn’s mind, so he opened up discord and entered into his friend group’s server and saw a few of his friends already in voice chat.
“Fuck me, that is one way to get rid of a hangover,” Aiden said, his voice was groggy and yet seemed to be somewhat excited at the same time.
“Tell me about it,” Nenn said. Two more ‘your friend has entered the call’ pings sounded out, and the collective friend group was all present.
“Well fuck that,” Liz said. “I was enjoying sleeping in before we return to reality tomorrow. What do y’all think? Is it real?”
“Has to be,” Harper chimed in.
“I agree,” Nenn said. “I don’t think any government or rogue group could manage to pull this off.”
“What do we want to do-o-o-o ab-ou-t it,” Jack started to say as the call began to lag out.
Nenn quickly pulled up the calls text chat and entered “Meet at the twins at 12?” which was followed by some more ‘this call is lagging out’ sounds, and a chorus of thumbs up emojis to Nenn’s message. A moment later and discord had crashed. Every social media and communication app was having trouble at the same time as the entirety of the human population of earth was collectively losing their shit.
Nenn got up and got ready. He enjoyed a hot shower as he got his mind in order. He grabbed his hiking backpack and quickly tossed in a couple of necessities from around his apartment. After a week of drunken partying, he had slim pickings on what socks and underwear to pack. He figured it wouldn’t be too long before shit really started to hit the fans, so he tried to make good long-term choices. After a moment this struck him as being a little odd, it was as if he had already decided what he was going to be doing tomorrow. He was packing as if he was going out on an expedition. He packed his phone charger and headed out the door, locking it behind him.
Nenn lived in a not too fantastic apartment just outside of the downtown core of his country’s capital city. Without too much hassle he made it down to the parking garage and started his ‘functional but just barely so’ car and set off for the twin’s family home in the suburbs. It was slow going as Nen pulled onto the highway. It seemed that many other people had the same idea of going to visit friends and family before the apocalypse begins.Nenn couldn’t blame them, after all, he was doing the exact same thing. Nenn quickly became bored sitting in traffic so he turned on the radio for the first time in forever.
“With the announcement today, we have been given friendly emergency instructions from the broadcast standards board to operate as close to normal as possible without opinions and biases being introduced. We will be sharing any updates as they unfold. To recap, a mysterious message has been transmitted across the globe and every world government has denied being responsible. At the top of the hour the President of the United States will be addressing the world, followed by the addresses from Canada’s Prime Minister. We will be covering the address and ask that if you do not need to use the internet to avoid doing so for now. Thank you.”
And with that the radio station began to play one of their usual evergreen songs. Nenn checked the time and saw he had 45 minutes until the top of the hour. He quickly zoned out while navigating through traffic. The same message was repeated every three songs, and was soon accompanied by the message in French. Nenn estimated that he would be able to make it to the twin’s house before the address as long as traffic continued to cooperate.
Minutes later Nenn pulled off the highway. For the first time ever, it seemed as though traffic had managed to behave itself, even though everyone was in a state of panic. With the announcement of the addresses a lot of people will probably wait on that before they try to head out, Nenn thought.
Five minutes later and Nenn was pulling up to the twin’s family home with mere minutes to spare. He grabbed his pack and filed into the twin’s house as he had done for nearly two decades at this point. He went down into the basement and took a spot on the sectional couch as the rest of the gathered group briefly acknowledged his arrival before returning their attention back to the tv. There was a live broadcast from Major’s Hill Park, a place that Nenn had recognized from many Canada Day celebrations and fireworks. Only this time the tranquility of the park had been disturbed by the appearance of a 10m by 10m square-based shining black obelisk towering into the sky. The area was actively being cordoned off by police and parliament hill security.
“So uhh,” Nenn began. “I guess that solves the question of if this is real or not.”
“They’ve been covering that obelisk for the last ten minutes,” Liz said. “I’ve got a feeling that we won’t be getting any palpable information on what’s going on, even with the address.” Liz sat curled up on a couch in the corner under a blanket. Her brunette locks looked as though they had been thrown into a hasty ponytail this morning, no doubt just after The Announcement had aired.
“Not that we can do anything else but watch at this point,” said Jack, who was looking towards his fraternal twin Liz. Jack wasn’t in any better shape. His short brown hair was a mess and the 5 o’clock shadow from three days ago was showing. He definitely looked like he was working through a hangover.
“Three minutes to go,” said Aiden while looking down at his smartwatch. Aiden looked to be in his element. He was focused in and doing his best to scroll through internet forums. It looked like he also had the foresight to clean up and gear up before coming over as his camping bag sat between his legs on the floor.
Aiden’s counterpart, and the final member of the friend group, Harper sat half asleep beside Aiden. She gazed at the television screen with bleary eyes as she leaned against her boyfriend. Her camping bag had also made an appearance, but if Nenn had to guess that was probably Aiden’s doing. The couple lived in a condo no more than five minutes down the road from the Twin’s house.
“There’s lots of speculation happening, but a couple of theories have come to the forefront,” Aiden said.
“Let me take a guess, something isekai or portal fantasy themed?” Nenn said.
“Yeah, those are the leading theories. Other notable ones are something more akin to King Aurther’s sword in the stone, a trial to find the chosen ruler or something to that effect. Given the threat of genocide for not participating it’ll probably result in death if you’re not found to be worthy, or something,” Aiden said.
“When I saw The Announcement, I thought it was the Christian Rapture coming to pass,” Jack said. “You know that thing those religious nuts have been shouting about on the street corners downtown for years. Maybe they were right.”
“Well fuck, I sure hope not,” Liz said. “If it is, I’m pretty sure we are all going straight to hell.”
Nenn laughed. “At least we’ll be in good company then. It almost sounds like a great time for an eternal rager.” Everyone’s eyes slowly turned to their resident Christian friend Harper. It took her a moment to realize the focus had been put onto her.
“I’ll be joining you guys, I’m not a good enough Christian by definition to ascend to Heaven in the Rapture, I think. It’s been, like, 12 years since I voluntarily went to church. I think the last time I went was for Christmas mass with my grandparents two years ago,” Harper said.
The news coverage on the television swapped from a live view of Major’s Hill Park to an ornately decorated wooden podium in front of several American flags. The tension in the Twin’s basement returned as the group waited for the President of the United States to take his sweet time as per usual.
“You guys should see the polling that’s going on right now,” Aiden said. “Here’s a fun one. 63% have voted saying that the President announces that the United States knew about aliens this whole time. 22% say that he’s going to put a Christian spin on it to try and explain it away, and the remaining percent have voted that absolutely nothing new is going to be shared with the public.”
“I’d put money on the ‘nothing’ option.” Liz said.
And in an atypical fashion the President, right on time, strolled onto the screen flanked by a lot of important looking staff members and took his spot at the podium.
“My fellow Americans, citizens of our NATO allies, and the rest of humanity, today has been a day of confusion. A week ago, I stood here proclaiming our greatest achievement as a species, and today we have been served with an even greater challenge. One that has, no doubt, shaken humanity to the core.”
“At this time, I would like to share with the world a secret that has been kept locked behind closed doors and buried deep beneath the ground. For decades, multiple governments around the world have come to the conclusion that extraterrestrial intelligences exist, and have visited the planet.”
“Now, we have not interacted with these extraterrestrials. They have not communicated with us, and their technology that we have managed to recover works in mysterious ways. Ways that no one has been able to figure out how it works, or how it could possibly work with our current understanding of physics. Everything that has been recovered remains completely non-operational and inert to this day.”
“The knowledge of extraterrestrial life existing has been kept secret as there have only been three possible gains that have come from it. First, that we are not alone, and not that we are alone but that we are helplessly primitive to these visitors. Second, that traveling through the vastness of space to other worlds is physically possible, but we are nowhere close to that. And third, we cannot hide. Our existence as a species has been documented by extraterrestrial life for an unknown amount of time.”
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“The thinking back in the 1950’s, when we had become aware of all of this, has been that we, as a species, should not race towards the goal of interstellar travel, space colonization, or force ourselves to understand the scraps of alien technology that we have recovered, but to allow ourselves to develop organically as a species. To do things the human way and make it our own. We as a society could not rush towards goals that could take hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years to achieve.”
“Which brings us to today and what has been termed as The Announcement. Did any of the world governments know this was going to happen? No, we did not. Did any of the world governments know that returning humans from Mars would trigger The Announcement? No, we did not. Can the world governments of today do anything to try and stop The Announcement and the so-called trial in less than a day's time? No, we cannot not, but we are trying.”
“The only thing that we can confirm as of this moment is that the extraterrestrial technology that we have recovered shares engraved symbols with the obelisks that have appeared around the world. We are reasonably certain that it is, at least, the same society of extraterrestrials that have issued The Announcement.”
“At this time, I am declaring martial law in the United States of America. This decision has not been an easy one to make, but for the moment, we as a society, cannot descend into lawlessness. At this time, those who wish to participate in the trial may do so of their own volition. Further details will be available as we figure out the logistics. Thank you everyone for listening, and may God be with us all.”
The basement was quiet as the news channel swapped over to a view of an empty podium surrounded by Canadian flags.
“So, uhh, Liz, I hope you didn’t put any money down on that bet,” Jack said.
“Well, how was I to guess that in three minutes time the POTUS would confirm that aliens exist, we knew about them, and we’re fucking dead in the water. That seems like a lot,” Liz said. She unfurled herself off of the couch. “I’m going to go take a shower before we do anything.”
“What do you mean before we do anything?” Jack said.
“Show of hands,” Liz said, “Who’s going to join The Trial?” Everyone’s hand went up, including Jack’s after he thought about it for a half second. “There we go. I figured we were going to be making a bit of a pilgrimage to Nenn’s apartment in a little bit. I might as well get my shit in gear before we do that,” Liz was already heading up the basement stairs before she finished her last sentence.
“We all want to go?” Jack asked.
“Well, yeah,” Nenn said. “It’s not like we spent our entire lives training for this trial or anything. You know, five nerds who have been playing team-based video games, MMOs, dabbled in D&D, and have a vague habit of going camping and fishing for vacation for nearly a decade now. The only thing better would be if we all took up a strict regimen of martial arts with a degree in structural engineering.”
“I’m just waiting to put my underwater basket weaving skills to use,” Harper chimed in, now fully awake. “But seriously, if The Announcement is correct, there’s no reason for us to wait around to be culled by the powers that be. We might as well die trying if we are going to die anyways.
“You know, I was at least trying to hide my excitement a little bit,” Jack said before he got up and went to gather his things.
***
The rest of the day continued on relatively uneventfully. Nenn and the gang got their collective shit together and there were some heartfelt goodbyes exchanged between the twins and the rest of their family. It wasn’t a question of if they should, but rather why did they have to go first. Or well as close to first as possible.
When Liz had returned from her shower she had been adamant that the group had to be first into the trial. When pressed on why she thought about it she just shrugged her shoulders and said the thought had suddenly popped into her head. The saying of ‘No guts, no glory’ was tossed around a couple of times and had become a bit of a catch phrase of the day.
With the tearful farewells out of the way the gang piled into Nenn’s car, which was a bit of a tight fit with five adults each with a camping bag stowed in the trunk. The drive on the highway back downtown was slow going as the rest of society was coming to grips with the upheaval of perceived reality.
Two hours later and what used to be a twenty minute drive was finally complete as Nenn pulled into his parking spot. The rest of the gang unfolded themselves from the back of his car and grabbed their bags. They headed up to Nenn’s apartment and got a couple hours of sleep. They had reasoned that there was no use trying to cram anything into their heads right now. They all had some basic survival skills from camping and were well-versed in video game logic, so the best thing to do was rest.
Nenn rolled over and silenced his alarm, only to stare with blurry eyes at his phone and the sound that kept coming out of it. He perked up a moment later realizing it wasn’t his phone but a cacophony of the others alarms all going off at once. With groggy resolve everyone began to stir, silencing their alarms and got ready. 4 in the morning was a rough time to wake up at. It got worse as Nenn quickly made the discovery that the power was out as he tried the lightswitch.
“Damn, I guess the powers out,” Nenn said.
“Eh, it could be worse,” Aiden said, already flicking on his phone’s flashlight.
“Right, I guess it could be the apocalypse,” Nenn said. That earned him a couple of chuckles around the room. Everyone finished their last minute morning routine and they set off, now equipped with their own headlamp. The streets were eerily quiet that morning in the pitch blackness that was oh so uncommon in the outer downtown of Ottawa. The lack of street lamps, or traffic of any kind made it such a bizarre sight. It reminded Nenn of walking around after a heavy snowfall when all of the sound was damped by the fresh powder.
The walk to Major’s Hill park would take the group half an hour but it was smooth sailing all the way. There were a couple of streets where the quietly oppressive mood had been replaced by strobing red and blue lights on top of police vehicles.
“If I had to place a bet on what happened, I’m going to say it was looters trying to take advantage of the situation,” Liz said.
“You know, I would have thought that there would have been more of that happening,” Jack said.
“It’s probably because we got the slow version of the apocalypse,” Harper said. “If it was the end of the world tomorrow, or like, next week or whatever, I’m sure shit would have really hit the fan.”
“Now that I think about it, we might have just traded out one apocalypse for another, potentially slower one,” Aiden said.
“What do you mean?” Nenn asked.
“Well, if we consider climate change to be an apocalypse considering our pre-Announcement trajectory, next year, at this time there should be a billion less humans on the earth. And the year after that there will be like 900 million less than that, or whatever. That's a lot of emissions canceled right there. Even with runaway effects from the past, whatever resources remain will get spread across a smaller population base,” Aiden said.
“So in effect we’ve traded out complete climate collapse for The Trial. Well I guess the human race will keep surviving then at least," Nenn said.
"Ah yes, all hail our benevolent alien overlords," Liz said.
"If they were benevolent they wouldn't need to threaten us with impending doom," Harper said.
"And now we go deeper down the rabbit hole,"Aiden said. "Maybe they could be benevolent if they had a better medium to work with. Maybe there's a race of aliens out there that are non-aggressive, quick to adapt, and they follow the rules 100% of the time. I'm sure the benevolent alien overlords could step down and hold an orientation seminar on how to properly function as a member of the intergalactic community and be well received. But, that's not us." Aiden pointed over to the attending police vehicles outside of a smashed up storefront to prove his point.
The group remained silent as they processed Aiden's words. They arrived at Majors Hill Park and the calm serenity of the early morning had been shattered. The obelisk and surrounding area was lit up by military grade floodlights and the hum of generators punctuated the air. A barrier of festival fencing had been erected around the obelisk keeping the public away from the otherworldly obelisk.
It was a sight to be seen. Oppressive in nature, completely black and imposing. So simple, yet brutal in its design. The early morning sky painted an eerie picture with the monument interrupting what should have been a nice morning.
“I thought there would have been more people here,” Jack said. The area around was sparsely populated, there were a couple of news crews and their associated vehicles spread out around the scene. They stood around chatting, occasionally running between setups. There had been no change since yesterday when the obelisk appeared. If Nenn had to guess, he would say the obelisk had been reduced to a small streamed picture in the picture window in the newcast with the anchor coming back to give an update of ‘nothing has changed’ every hour or so.
The military was there in force, making up the majority of the people present. They looked slightly out of place in all of the upheaval. They were standing guard making sure the perimeter fencing was contained, but other than that there was no sense of urgency or panic. Most were busy holding down some folding chairs behind their vehicles out of line of sight of the obelisk, while a few of them had been posted around the perimeter fencing.
Then there was the three and fourth group of people that were interspersed in small clusters a safe distance away from the perimeter fencing. These were the people who looked prepared to set off into the forest for several weeks, and the bystanders who were there to see them off.
And the final group of people were the token force of emergency service workers. Two ambulances sat on standby at the edge of the park with a firetruck and police cruiser rounding out the municipal response. It was a little redundant given the army’s presence. But given that no one had ever needed to prepare for a situation like this it didn’t hurt to be a little cautious.
Nenn did a quick head count, and by his estimation, there were maybe 30 people there who looked like they would be participating in the trial.
“I guess most people don’t want to give up their lives that easily,” Harper said.
“We’re just the social deviants,” Nenn said. “The word ‘trial’ seems to be some kind of triggering keyword for us.”
“We’ve only spent like, what, thirteen or fourteen years as a party of gamers perfecting our murderhobo craft. I didn’t want to say anything but it feels like an expansion release day for an MMO. I’m feeling all of those pre-release emotions,” Harper said.
“Ah yes, the Trial, the long awaited expansion to Earth 1.0. I can’t wait to see what the devs have cooked up this time around,” Aiden said.
“And in true expansion fashion the previous content will be obsolete and no reason to return to it,” Jack said.
You know, I hadn’t thought about that. There’s probably no way back once the trial has been entered. And yet we’re still pushing forward. This definitely feels like something I should have realized sooner, but yet… There’s an odd feeling in my mind, like this is something that I was meant to do. Born to do, even. Nenn thought.
“Not to ruin the mood, but is anyone else getting ‘this is my hole’ vibes from the obelisk?” Liz asked. The group's attention returned to the imposing monument.
“And there is an internet rabbit hole I wish I could have never remembered,” Jack said. “But yeah, kind of. Not like a ‘I must go and hug the monument this very instant’ feeling, but more of a ‘sitting at graduation waiting for my name to be called’ kind of vibe. Inevitable, but not unwanted.”
The group agreed with Jack’s metaphor and posted up a respectful distance from the obelisk. Time crept by as the group just did what they normally did. Stand around and rehash the same jokes and memes as they would any other night on voice chat.
Nenn kept checking his watch. He had decided to wear the watch that he had inherited from his grandfather's passing. It was a little bit old fashioned, being an automatic self-windup watch, but it would certainly do the job, and there would be no issues with needing to replace a battery.
As the clock struck 6:45, 15 minutes remaining. The crowd went completely silent as the obelisk began to light up. Along the base, at an average person’s height the outline of handprints began to appear followed by the strange alien writing engraving itself underneath.
The internet had taken to calling the writing Babelscript over the last day. The Announcement had been transmitted in Babelscript and it was only afterwards when screenshots of the text were examined that everyone had realized they weren’t reading words written in a human language. No one could tell that they weren't reading their preferred language. It was only when you weren’t attempting to read the words, that one would see their non-human form.
There was a rush to the perimeter fence as everyone tried to get a better look. The news cameras were back out with reporters standing front in center as they did their best to relay what was happening. From the fence, Nenn could just barely make out some of the writing.
“The Babelscript, it looks like, .. names?” said Nenn, who was a little uncertain about it. It would make sense if every handprint had a name attached to it, maybe? I don’t know what the aliens were intending here.’
Nenn didn’t get the opportunity to think about it any further as the fencing in front of the group and several other sections began to fall inwards. Nenn was certain that no one in front of him had pushed on it, there weren’t enough people here for the crowd to start crushing against the fence and they were anchored into the ground, so there had to be another force at work.
The party advanced towards the obelisk, as did everyone else who had gathered with the intent of taking the trial. And then it happened.
“There, I see it. There’s my name,” said Jack. He cut at an angle towards the far side of the obelisk with the rest of the group following quickly realizing they had all been grouped together.
Jackson Adams
Elizabeth Adams
Aiden Langston
Harper McCormick
Glenn Kerr
Their names were all there, the glowing outline of a hand perfectly sized for the named person. Instinctually they knew what they had to do. It was simple. All they had to do was put their hand against the obelisk and they would begin The Trial… just as soon as The Trial commenced that is.
“Fourteen minutes to go,” Nenn said, looking at his watch.
“You know, I had almost forgotten that your name is Glenn and not Nenn,” Harper said. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard it.”
“You’re right. It’s been, what, like ten years or so since I last heard it. Always a fun time whenever we had a substitute teacher and they would roll call your name,” Jack said.
“Well you’re one to talk Jack-son. You and E-liz-a-beth, are in nearly the same boat as me,” Nenn said, emphasizing the often forgotten part of their names. Liz laughed.
“Yeah, I always get caught missing my name when I’m waiting for services. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my parents call me Elizabeth outside of when they would drop my full name when I was in trouble.”
“I love how universal that is,” Harper said. “You knew you had truely fucked up when your parents dropped your full name.”
The remaining time flew by as the party, and everyone else stood in silence with their hand against the smooth cold stone of the obelisk. The army was busy trying to reconstruct the fencing barrier while the television news crews were getting in as close as they dared to.
Nenn took one last look at the early morning sky before his world became overwhelmingly white.